Lord Grizzly, Second Edition by Frederick Manfred Page A

Hugh could too.
    Hugh got to his feet. Staggering a little on his game leg and waving Old Bullthrower overhead, Hugh said, “Gen’ral, this child hates an American what ain’t seen Indians skulped or don’t know a Pawnee moccasin from a Comanche. I admit I’ve sometimes thought of makin’ tracks back to white diggin’s again, where the beds is soft and the wimmen white and the red niggers only a dream in the night. Ae, many a time I’ve sighed for the bread and beer of the old days. But then I remember fresh fleece from a buffler’s hump, young cow at that, and sweet boudins just barely crimped with fire, and still sweeter beavertail. And I remember places where a child can do just as he pleases to, as far as he can see, good or bad. Where a child can sing if he wants to, or shut up if he wants to. Where meat never spoils. Gen’ral, seein’ them cowards pull out for white diggin’s while our Silas here is still willin’ to risk his topknot”—the single arteries down each side Hugh’s nose began to wriggle like lively red angleworms—“Gen’ral, I know what’s good for this old hoss. If I have to, I’d rather be skulped by a red devil than skun by a nabob. Give me a little ‘bacca, a plew a plug, and plenty of duPont powder and Galena balls for Ol’ Bullthrower, and a new Green River knife, and I’m off with ee. Whoopee! This hoss can’t wait to shine with fresh buffler meat. Free mountains, here I come.”
    General Ashley couldn’t help but laugh. His red face beamed. “Hurrah for Hugh! That’s what I like to hear.” General Ashley laughed some more. “Though I want to warn you, Hugh, you’ve got to follow orders. You’re not going to play balky horse again like you did up by the Rees. Each man has to do his part when the order is given.”
    Right behind Hugh came Prayin’ Diah Smith, and then Jim Clyman, and after them the boy Jim Bridger, and quiet book-learned John S. Fitzgerald, and proud George Yount, and Augie Neill and Jim Anderson, and durable Tom Fitzpatrick, and gaunt Allen and horseface Rose the interpreter—all the lads who’d come to parley under the cottonwood.
    That same night General Ashley assigned thirteen of the men to Major Henry’s brigade. They would return with the major to the post on the Yellowstone and the Missouri. Among the thirteen were Hugh Glass, the boy Jim Bridger, John S. “Fitz” Fitzgerald, Augie Neill, and Jim Anderson. The other seventeen mountain men were assigned to Captain Diah Smith’s party, which would leave for the Black Hills as soon as he could get supplies together.
    Also that same night Hugh Glass had Clerk Bonner write a letter for him. Hugh gave the letter, along with a bundle of personals, to the captain of Leavenworth’s keelboat and asked that both be mailed in St. Louis.
    The letter was for Johnnie Gardner’s father and it read:
    Dr Sir:
    My painful duty it is to tell you of the deth of yr son wh befell at the hands of the indians 2n June in the early morning. He lived a little while after he was shot and asked me to inform you of his sad fate. We brought him to the ship where he soon died. Mr. Smith a young man of our company made a powerful prayer wh moved us all greatly and I am persuaded John died in peace. His body we buried with others near this camp and marked the grave with a log. His things we will send to you. The savages are greatly treacherous. We traded with them as friends but after a great storm of rain and thunder they came at us before light and many were hurt. I myself was shot in the leg. Master Ashley is bound to stay in these parts till the traitors are rightly punished.
    yr obt svt
    Hugh Glass

4
    I T WAS late August, the Moon of Plums Ripening.
    On the afternoon of the twenty-eighth, on the fourth day out from Ft. Kiowa, going northwest across country and well away from the Missouri